


Bombshell

by Anonymississippi



Series: The Chronicles of Das Sound Machine [4]
Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Emotional!Kommissar, F/M, Meltdown!Pieter, Successful!DSM, youtube videos
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-19
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-04-10 03:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4374872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/pseuds/Anonymississippi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just back from their wildly-successful Japanese tour, DSM is in early preparations to get their documentary filmed before their second showing at the World A Capella Championships. However, a minor (major) wrench in the gears of the lead mechanics of the sound machine might force them to disclose their relationship earlier than they intended.</p>
<p>Better summary: Liesel is crying in the kitchen and Pieter doesn't really know what's going on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bombshell

Liesel had rehearsal in half an hour, but the picante prickling at the creases of her eyes would not go away, no matter how many deep diaphragm exercises she did in the comfort of her apartment kitchen. Tears kept welling, like annoying little marbles attempting to squeeze themselves through her ducts, like kidney stones moving along some inner lining and violating her insides; every tear that leaked physically _hurt_.

Liesel reached for her glass and took another gulp of water, then immediately quashed the urge to vomit, swallowing against some gutsy projectile geyser of liquid burbling in her esophagus.

_Ugh… nope._

The computer chord was ripped from its power port in her scrabbling haste across the tile. Her detour sent the device skittering along the dinner table, her chair clattering to the side as she dry heaved twice over the sink full of dishes.

She never usually allowed plates and cups and cutlery to pile up as they had, but something had felt so _off_ recently; DSM’s practices were finally running like her home country’s train schedule: regular, precise, and effective. They’d just returned from a substantial tour in Japan, and were thankfully getting back to regular rehearsals at their dance studio in Berlin following a two-day photo shoot at VIVA headquarters. The members of DSM were all set for the camera crews to record their every move over the upcoming weeks, given that they had only two months until their second showing at the World A Capella Championships in Barcelona. Their agreement with Germany’s MTV division had sparked some controversy within the group, but in the end, the section heads had decided that no publicity was bad publicity, and the reluctant members were soundly outvoted.

Their documentary began filming today.

With any luck, it would get the subtitles Liesel had been lobbying for and would be broadcast on the BBC, or even onto one of the American cable music stations. If they were going to tolerate such intrusiveness for the sake of PR, she at least wanted the pay-off to be substantial. Thinking about the cameras flashing in her face, the little red dot, perpetually lit and focused on her… it nearly made her sick again.

Good thing she was already hovering over the sink, clutching her stomach.

The YouTube video at the table kept playing, the boy’s voice going sharp in the cutest of places, her eyes still stinging for some unfathomable reason. Liesel slapped the tap and water gushed out of the faucet. She cupped her hands underneath the stream and slurped, impolite and desperate, then threw a handful of water against her face.

Something was definitely _wrong_. Delayed jet lag from Japan; late-developing epileptic symptoms or an allergic reaction to the make-up used at the photo shoot.

Just… _something._

She’d never felt like this before. Not even her nerves on the eve of tryouts for the Bavarian State Opera had her stomach so tied up, or her emotions as frazzled as they currently were.

And she’d certainly never be caught dead, bawling her eyes out, upchucking her modest lunch, over a video of some four-year-old child singing a Bruno Mars song to an American talk show host.

_What the hell was wrong with her???_

“Liesel, have you seen my music binder?” Pieter called from the living area outside. “I checked the stand on the keyboard and it’s not—Liesel, are you okay?!”

She pressed a hand against her lips and nodded mutely, definitely _not okay_ , certainly on the _verge of some major physical breakdown_ , because that little boy on the video was so off-key, and it was both the most adorable and sickening thing she’d ever seen in her life. Her stomach felt like she’d just dropped from a bungee platform and then recoiled, a bounding, weightless sort of upheaval in her core.

“Dammit, Pieter, what have I told you about leaving those YouTube videos up?” she snapped, wiping furiously at her face. She stalked over toward the overturned chair and righted it, then sat down in a flurry of tears and nausea.

“I was researching arrangements for the ‘Grenade-21 Guns transition,” Pieter said contritely, ducking his head as he placed a wary hand on her shoulder. “We’re still looking at the war theme for Worlds, are we not?”

“Yes, but… but have you _seen_ this?” she protested, turning the tilted monitor upright toward the man at her side. “This child?”

“No…” Pieter answered warily, eyes flitting in nervous worry from the screen and back to Liesel’s face, then toward the screen again.

“Here, let me just—” Liesel mumbled hurriedly, dragging the little playback dot toward the beginning of the song. “He got a virus… no, ‘went viral’, is what the Americans say, and then this woman found him and—”

“ _I’d cat a guh-nAAAAAAAAAde for yuuuuuuuuh!!!”_ the infantile voice blasted, shrill and pitchy through the computer speakers, causing Liesel to hiccup like some adolescent after ingesting too many sweets far too quickly.

“So….” Pieter trailed off cluelessly, raising skeptical brows as she cast a pleading look up at him. “You want us to ditch the mesh and wear fedoras instead?”

“PIETER!!!” she cried, slapping her palms flat on the table in frustration. She then hiccuped violently, which turned her frustration downright comical. “No, it’s just…”

“Just _what_ , Liesel? We’re going to be late for rehearsal if we don’t catch the bus,” he said distractedly, shuffling about the kitchen to fill their water bottles. “You’re kind of freaking me out. This is not at all like the time you suggested the last costume change. You had fabric swatches and preliminary sketches done up, so this headgear thing is coming across as random, even by my standards.”

Liesel ignored him and replayed the video, smiling dumbly at the little boy in his pretty blue button-up, eyes squinted and mouth open wide as a crocodile’s.

“Pieter, I think something’s wrong with me,” she said, chin wobbling hysterically. She hiccuped again, and  brushed her thumb into her eyelid and pressed, tried to wring whatever tears were left from their sockets. Her cheeks were blotchy and her hair was a mess; her sweats were rumpled and she wasn’t wearing her sports bra. She was also sweating noticeably, which was strange considering she’d been sitting, watching YouTube videos of “Grenade” renditions for nearly an hour in a climate controlled apartment.

Rehearsal was in twenty minutes and she couldn’t be certain that she’d packed her bag that morning. She’d fainted yesterday at the photo shoot, but had attributed the irregularity to the hot spot lights and intense body shuffling among the rest of DSM and the scurrying make-up artists. Pieter had been perfectly caring and concerned ( _within reason_ , she reminded him), but kept his distance whenever they spotted Rudolph on set, walking like some sentinel with a bluetooth device surgically welded to his ear. Magda and Yvette had quickly ushered her off to the side, so that the majority of the group didn't see her falter. It would not do for the Kommissar to look so queasily _human_.

But none of this... weird sickness made _sense_. She was used to hot stage lights and bodies shuffling in heavy leather for intense choreography. Her physicality was one of her strong suits; so what was with the sudden sensitivity? Her stomach had been roiling since Japan, and her hot flashes had only intensified since they’d flown back to Berlin. But late March in Berlin afforded cooler temperatures, nothing like a sweltering summer, nothing that would cause a reaction like this… unless she’d picked up some bug, some parasite while traveling.

“I’m going to have to miss practice,” she said, putting her head in her hand. “And pick up some medicine.”

Pieter crossed to the table and handed her a full water bottle, unscrewing the cap on his own. He was dressed in his black cotton practice shirt and black athletic shorts, the grey DSM across his chest resembling some bastardized version of Superman’s logo. He placed his hand over her free one and squeezed experimentally, tapping with his index finger until she finally lowered her hand from her face and made eye contact with him.

“Would you like for me to stay with you?” he asked. “I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve missed practice in the two years we’ve all been working, Liesel. And most of the times you did miss were for some other type of work. I know your body and you know your body and you are rarely sick. Should we go to the hospital?”

“I don’t think it’s as drastic as all that,” she said, taking a sip of water.

Pieter leaned back in his chair and reached for his own bottle, unscrewing the cap and bringing it up for a big swallow.

“I think I contracted something strange in Japan,” Liesel said, attempting to concentrate on the screen in front of her. The little boy smiled back brightly, his paused face lighting up the screen like a starburst. “If it was just the nausea I wouldn’t be as worried, but with all the crying—” she joked irreverently, and added an eye roll at the fleeting possibility. “—my mother would say I was pregnant, or something.”

She had all of .07 picoseconds to recoil as Pieter spat the majority of his water onto both her and their computer screen.

“Fuck, Pieter—!”

“You’re _pregnant_?!?!”

“God dammit, _no_!” Liesel said, blotting aggressively at her t-shirt before turning her attention to the ruined computer screen. The little boy was still smiling, his song on mental replay in her head… all of a sudden, pregnancy didn’t sound so bad, even if the little boy did screech like a barn owl.

“I mean…” Liesel said, brows furrowing as she slowed her blotting, casting her memory back to their month in Japan. “I don’t _think_ I am…” she continued, counting the weeks since her last— _shit_. “Oh God, Pieter. That second night in Kyoto?” she prompted. “We didn’t use a—”

“I’m cancelling rehearsal,” Pieter shot up from his chair and darted about the kitchen like a demented desert lizard, eyes glazed and feet moving at a comical pace. He ran into the doorjamb, then sprinted back around the corner once he remembered he’d left his practice bag draped over one of the dining chairs. “Phone—I—drug store—”

“Okay, just… let’s just settle down,” Liesel said, suddenly relieved to have something of a mission to focus on instead of her nausea. “Call Rosa and tell her to run today’s choreography rehearsal, alright? The film crew needs something to shoot. I’m going to… to, uh…”

“You can email her the set list and formations,” Pieter supplied, typing inexpertly on his phone. “Shit—”

“Yes,” Liesel said blankly, sitting down to the dripping computer. She made a few swipes with her shirt sleeve, but it was still hard to see through the prismatic distortions. “What file is the—”

“Twenty-thirteen, _WAR SEQUENCE_ ,” Pieter answered, bringing the phone to his ear. “Rosa, ja, Kommissar and I are going to be late—”

“Absent,” Liesel corrected, not taking her eyes off of the confidential computer files. She also double clicked the browser icon and pulled up the contact information for her women’s clinic.

“—not going to be able to make it to practice today,” Pieter amended. “Yes, everything’s fine. Just some, uh…”

“Personal issues,” she kept typing, opening the shared DropBox file for DSM.

“Something personal. It shouldn’t be a problem,” Pieter said, at which point Liesel paused her typing, and had to suppress a sob.

Because _this definitely could be a problem_.

“Okay, ja, ja, we’ll speak with you after rehearsal. Ja, thanks Rosa,” Pieter said, pressing the ‘end’ button on the phone decisively. He catapulted over the chair and knelt at Liesel’s side, placing a hulking hand on her thigh and another one on her back.

“Liesel, just… don’t… I’m going to b-buy a p-p-pregnancy test,” Pieter said, his voice hitching in odd little quivers that sounded suspiciously like dubstep. “Do you need anything else?”

“I don’t know,” Liesel replied, really  _not_ appreciating her overreaction.

She inhaled once more, aiming for that professional composure that usually came second nature.

“Just… pick up more than one. We don’t want a false positive. Or negative. Is that a—never mind,” she shook her head sharply. “I’ll try and get an appointment with Dr. Schultz today.”

“Schultz? That’s not the DSM doctor,” Pieter said.

“Gynecologist, Pieter.”

“And on that note,” Pieter cringed, rising and turning on his heel, exiting with his DSM gear.

“Pieter—”

“I know,” he returned, head hung low and shame-faced. “Not the best time for a joke,” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his next.

“We’re… everything’s going to be fine,” she said, absently punching numbers into her phone. “It’s… it’s all going to be okay.”

“Ja,” Pieter nodded quickly. “Ja it… is,” he said, making his way across the kitchen. He slowed, then stood, silent for a few lost moments. She didn't dare look at him, instead concentrating with spectacular effort on her phone, the kitchen table, the water drops pooling on her laptop. Anything and everything but Pieter, _Pieter_ , because this was... 

She didn't know what this was.

“Come with me," Pieter murmured. "Perhaps walking around a little will settle your stomach. It’s just right down the block.”

“Shouldn’t I call the doctor—?”

“Let’s make sure we have something to call about, first,” he answered, surprisingly serene about the entire affair. “For all we know, you have a Japanese tapeworm inside of you.”

“That sounds promising,” Liesel snarked.

“You can at least pick up some gingerale,” he tried, tugging on her hand as they exited the kitchen, the automatic playlist of ‘Talented Kids on Ellen’ loading and buffering in the quiet kitchen.

 

* * *

 

 

“Holy—”

“Yep.”

“I can't believe we—”

“Uh huh.”

“But what about the _BabyDetect_ one? It only had the one—”

“There were two lines, Pieter. That one was just fainter.”

“Two lines, on all four tests…”

“Taken an hour apart…”

…

…

…

“Let’s call the doctor, Pieter.”

“Yeah… yeah.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Which puts you at about five weeks,” Dr. Schultz finished, snapping his gloves off of his hands and rolling back in his exam chair.

Liesel had to pick hers and Pieter’s jaws off the floor.

“I’ve had some, uhm, bleeding," Liesel began. "So I didn’t think I could be—”

“Spotting is perfectly normal, especially if you’re regularly involved in a high stress-position,” Dr. Schultz continued blandly. Just another day for him.

Meanwhile, Pieter and Liesel were slowly dovetailing into a catatonic state.

“You work in the entertainment industry, do you not?” Dr. Schultz led. “That would explain the stress, the mood swings. All perfectly normal.”

“So… pregnancy,” Pieter led dumbly, jaw wagging with questions Liesel could see he was having difficulty articulating. “There’s…” he gestured vaguely with an errant hand, as if he were physically hoping to grasp answers from the air and shove them into his pocket, like a street urchin turned petty thief of intangible concepts. “Things we’d have to do,” he finally settled upon, turning toward Liesel. “Things we need to… decide.”

“Yes, of course,” Dr. Schultz said, making careless marks to checkboxes on his form. “Of course you’ll be back in towards the end of next week or so, for the first major ultrasound, to hear the heartbeat—”

“ _Heartbeat?_ ” Liesel and Pieter said in unison.

They turned to each other simultaneously; Liesel could see the surprise, the sheeny glint of nervous sweat and bundled anxiety he held so tightly in his jaw; the pooling tears of uncertainty, of downright _terror_. This was not in their plan. No where near their plan, not their course, not their map. This was on another continent, another planet, another _universe_ , where they weren’t scheduled to perform every other weekend around Europe and the world, where camera crews wouldn’t be following their every move, cataloging her bodily expulsions from myriad orifices, tracking their private conversations about private matters…

“Yes, at 6-7 weeks you can hear the heartbeat on the ultrasound, so you’ll want to make an appointment with the nurse on your way… oh,” Dr. Schultz said, placing his clipboard down and pushing his glasses further up his nose. He stuck his pen behind his ear and sighed into his hand. “I’m so sorry, I’ve not been very sensitive to the situation,” he continued, redirecting his attention to the terrified couple in the exam room. “Unless of course the pregnancy was unexpected, in which case there are multiple options,” he said sympathetically, opening his desktop drawer to presumably pull out the literature on termination. “I had to do two post-delivery checks on women early this morning, so again, my apologies for not being altogether present,” he said, casting a wayward glance at the clock.

It was nearly six p.m.

He spread some material on his desk, then cast a pointed look at Liesel, in her white paper gown, and Pieter, in his black athletic shorts.

“Did you need a moment to—?”

“H-heartbeat, you said?” Liesel stammered slightly. This time, she couldn't suppress the smile blossoming on her face.

“Yes,” the doctor smiled sincerely. “At seven weeks, for sure.”

“Pieter,” Liesel murmured, shifting so that the sterile paper crinkled beneath her weight. “The appointment, we should—”

“Yes, I agree,” Pieter said, biting his lower lip in excitement, their silent understanding kicking in, that peculiar ability to read each other's thoughts after years of collaboration.

Dr. Schultz shifted in his desk chair, preparing to depart.

“You two can take a few minutes to decide what you’d like to do,” he said.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Dr. Schultz,” Pieter said, beaming from ear to ear, as if World Championships and international tours and sponsorship deals weren’t responsibilities, merely icing on the cake.

“Sorry, did you not want to discuss—”

“An appointment for an ultrasound,” Liesel cut the good doctor off, smirking and flushing and fidgeting atop the exam table. “We’d like to schedule it,” she said, tapping Pieter’s arm to stir him to attention. “The phone, so we can work around VIVA next week, as well as two-a-day rehearsals.”

“You’ve got the vocal coach from Cologne coming in for the altos on Tuesday after morning session,” Pieter reminded her.

“Right, of course,” Liesel said, eyes locked on the screen as Pieter scrolled through their color-coded appointments. “There, two-hour block at lunch on Thursday, the twenty-seventh. Can we speak with your receptionist to get that going?”

“Of course,” said the doctor, stepping back into the room.

“Alright,” Pieter nodded, leaning over to kiss Liesel on the forehead.

“Alright,” Liesel agreed, placing a splayed hand over her abdomen, frightened and gleeful and bewildered all at once.

She kinda needed to hurl again.

**Author's Note:**

> I get lost in the Ellen section on YouTube more often than I care to admit:
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvyL_NRDAbo
> 
> Also, just so everyone is relatively on board with the timeline, I'm operating under the assumption that Pieter and Kommissar are both 30ish during the 2015 World championships in PP2. That's giving me ages and 'life-happenings' at certain points to go by. 
> 
> This is certainly not the best or longest of what I've written for this series, mainly because I'm churning them out in three hours or less one free afternoon a week. But it means the world if you provide feedback of any sort, on plot, or chronology confusion, narrative, bad grammar... the works. Even if you're just reading it, that means a lot, too. 
> 
> Thanks so much!


End file.
